Search Results: LITERATURE from Grinning Cat Books

First Edition, First Printing. Irving's third book. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Blue and gray cloth boards, spine stamped in gilt. Dustjacket with original price of $5.95 on the inside front flap; with photo of Irving on the rear panel and 3 blurbs praising his first three books. Octavo. 245 pages. A fantastic copy.

First Edition, First Printing. Fine in original purple quarter-cloth and fine pictorial dust jacket. Signed on title page by McCourt. The moving Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography by this Irish-born New York City teacher, the basis for the film. Octavo. 6.5 x 9.5 in. 364 pp. A lovely and rare copy thus!

First Edition, First Printing. Signed by Maxwell on half title page. Fine in original grey cloth backed boards and fine pictorial dust jacket. Octavo. 5.75 x 8.75 in. 119 pp.

First Edition. Fine in a fine dustjacket. Signed by author on the title page. The first novel of William Wharton, Birdy won the U.S. National Book Award in the category First Novel. The book was a also Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1980, ultimately losing to The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer. On one level, this is merely a novel about a strange boy named Birdy and his friend Al. On another level, it's an inventive tale about friendship and family. Quarter cream cloth with grey paper boards. In mylar-covered dustjacket. Front board impressed with wing design. Top edge powder blue. Fine. Tall octavo, 309 p. A fine copy of this wonderful classic.

First Edition, First Printing. Near fine in a fine dustjacket. Light grey cloth with brown gilt lettering, cloth a tad dull, else fine. Illustrated with black and white photographs. Harry Crosby was the godson of J. P. Morgan and a friend of Ernest Hemingway. Living in Paris in the twenties and directing the Black Sun Press, which published James Joyce among others, Crosby was at the center of the wild life of the lost generation. Drugs, drink, sex, gambling, the deliberate derangement of the senses in the pursuit of transcendent revelation: these were Crosby's pastimes until 1929, when he shot his girlfriend, the recent bride of another man, and then himself. In this book, biographer and novelist Geoffrey Wolff's provides a subtle and striking picture of a man who killed himself to make his life a work of art. A lovely copy.

First Edition, First Impression, second state. One of only 500 copies thus. Fine in a near fine dustjacket, with foxing to the upper edges and spine. Otherwise a fine copy in excellent condition.
Blasting and Bombarding was the first of two autobiographical books written by Lewis (followed by Rude Assignment, 1950), and covers the period from 1914 to 1926, tracking Lewis's progress through the First World War and the literary and artistic upheavals of Modernism. Original orange cloth, titles to spine in black, top edge yellow. With dust jacket. Frontispiece and 13 plates from artwork by the author, 4 plates from photographs. Octavo. A wonderful copy in great condition.

Near fine in original lettered white wrappers, two tiny staple holes on front panel. Advanced Uncorrected Proof Copy of paperback reissue of author's first book contains nine page new introduction. Very scarce. Octavo. 5.5 x 8.5 in. 257 pp.

The Bridge in the Jungle. London: Jonathan Cape, 1939. Proof Copy. Paperback. Dated one year before the published Cape edition of 1940. Very good in original blue printed wrappers. Spine slightly cocked and toned, but binding is tight. Duodecimo. 5 x 7.375 in. 267 + [1] pp. Very scarce.

First Edition, First Printing. Just about fine in original brown boards and in like pictorial dust jacket (price-clipped). Signed by author Doris Lessing on half-title page. The 2007 Nobel Prize winner's best novel. According to BBC Radio 4, the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize, described Lessing as "that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny." "Oh good, did they say that about me?' Lessing replied. "Oh goodness, well obviously they like me better now than they used to."

First Edition, First Printing. Fine, as new. This cloth-bound deluxe, special limited edition is one of 1,000, signed by Mantel on the title page. Winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize, "Bring Up the Bodies" is the second novel in Hilary Mantel's historical Thomas Cromwell trilogy. In this novel, Mantel traces the downfall of Anne Boleyn. A beautiful, immaculate copy of this award-winning tale.

First U.S. Edition, First Printing. Limited Edition. Signed on the colophon by J. M. Coetzee. Black spine, ivory paper-covered boards 277 pages. Very fine in very fine dust jacket in a very fine turquoise slipcase. Signed on a specially printed page as part of Powell's "Indispensable" Series. J. M. Coetzee is a two time winner of the Booker Prize and the Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

First Edition thus. Very scarce. Fine in beautiful brown leather with elaborate gilt designs and lettering on the cover and spine. Gilt top stain. An immaculate copy of this nearly 100-year old edition that presents one the finest historical novels of the Middle Ages. Originally published by Charles Reade in 1861, the story is set in of the latter part of the 15-century against a background of the Reformation, the invention of printing, and a wealth of historical characters such as Luther, Deschamps, Villon, and Erasmus (as a child), Reade weaves a rich tapestry revolving around the tragic love-story of Erasmus' parents. An amazing copy and edition of this famous tale. The only one on the market.

First American Edition, First Printing. Fine in original quarter-cloth and fine pictorial dust jacket. Signed by author on title page. Aussie slang sheet laid in. Octavo. 426 pages. A great copy.

First Edition, First Printing. Very fine in fine dust jacket. Fine black and blue cloth and boards. Signed by Frazier on the title page. First state with misprint "man-woman" on p. 25, line 16, later changed to "mad-woman." Frazier's first novel traces the journey of Inman, a wounded deserter from the Confederate army near the end of the American Civil War. It follows his harrowing journey from deserting the army to finding his way back to the woman he left behind, Ada, who waits for him, dealing with all kinds of hardships herself. The power of Ada and Inman's love, and their dedication to reuniting, is the driving force of the novel, along with Frazier's incorporation of historical context. Basis for the 2003 film starring Nicole Kidman, Academy Award winner Renee Zellweger who won the Best Supporting Actress award for the film and Jude Law who was nominated for Best Actor for the film. Octavo. 356 pages. A beautiful copy.

First Limited Edition of Eudora Welty's Collected Stories. One of 500 numbered copies signed by the author, this being number 220. Fine in a very good plus publisher's slipcase with normal shelf wear and some corners a bit bumped. Rich maroon cloth with gilt titles to the spine and gilt vignette to the front panel. A beautiful copy.
Eudora Welty won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize and was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was also the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her Collected Stories include the previously published collections: A Curtain of Green and Other Stories, The Golden Apples, The Wide Net and Other Stories, and The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories. A fantastic collector's item for the Welty fan.

First Edition, First Printing. Signed on the title page. Author's first book. Near fine in original purple cloth, titled in gilt on spine, and very good plus pictorial dust jacket. Black topstain. Dust jacket lightly worn at head of spine panel and top edges. In his debut book, Barthelme shares a collection of 14 wonderful short stories. Small octavo. 5.5 x 8.25 in. [viii], 183 + [1] pp.

First Rackham Edition. Fine in a near fine, rare original, beautiful pictorial dustjacket. "The Compleat Angler; or The Contemplative Man's Recreation, Being a Discourse of Rivers, Fishponds, Fish, and Fishing not Unworthy the Perusal of Most Anglers." With 12 full-page color plates (complete), and several black & white reproductions; illustrated endpapers. Near fine in original blue cloth, lettered and illustrated in gilt, top edge gilt. Quarto. 7.75 x 10 in. [ii], 224 pp. An uncommonly lovely copy of this famous work, one of the best we've seen.

First Edition thus. (1952). Fine, in 2 volumes. In publisher's original olive gray cloth, with black tiles and gilt lettering. Forest green boards and endpapers. No jacket, as issued. Content fine, with text bright, clean and unmarred. A beautiful set.
William Somerset Maugham was an English playwright, novelist, and short-story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. During the First World War, he served with the Red Cross and in the ambulance corps before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service. He worked for the service in Switzerland and Russia before the October Revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire. During and after the war, he travelled in India, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. He drew from those experiences in his later short stories and novels.

First Edition. Fine in near fine dustjacket. Signed by Sandburg on the front free endpaper. Navy blue cloth fine and richly hued. Dustjacket with very slight wear and chipping on the head and tail of spine and corners, otherwise bright and fine. A beautiful copy of this Pulitzer Prize winning collection of the author's work that has been collected from six earlier volumes with 74 poems not previously compiled. A lovely and rare copy.

Deluxe Limited Edition. Contains Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Fine, as new, in rich purple cloth with elaborate black and gilt titles and decoration. No dust jacket, as issued. Marbled end papers in shades of purple and grey. All edges gilt. With sixty-seven (67) beautiful, pull-page glossy color plates, and numerous black and white drawings as well. A large and luxurious volume (10x12x3'), and a scarce, very attractive collectible that would make a wonderful gift for the Jane Austen fan.